Mainline pilots will reap the benefits of increased profits. Regional pilots are outsourced labor, their entire purpose is to be cheap. Regionals will never be a good career and it was never meant to be. Get in, get your time, get out.

 

Well I think they might have hit a wall when they started introducing 175's and the 900's. What part of either of those planes screams regional? Those planes fly many of the mainline routes.

While I agree that the regionals are cheap labor it has become increasingly a pool of pilots that has dried up. The regionals are about to hit a big snag in the next 5-9 years. Most of us will be at a mainline carrier by then but grab your popcorn it going to be fun to watch.

 

Deliberate timing for new offer. Ultimately MIA WOULD have closed as the future feed model doesn't work best with the smaller number of feeders left after consolidation to have crew domiciles in every hub. NYC is slated to close as an Envoy base as well.

It goes like this: Announce closing of domicile X and go through the motions (displacement bids, etc.)....THEN, float new offer that includes keeping domiciles X and Y open for a period of time to get enough of those pilots on board to achieve 50%+1. In all likelihood, whether your MEC and negotiators know it, they will play right into Parker and Glasses hands if they put any such deal before the pilots.

Just watch. The proof will be a TA that has exactly the above offer of keeping closing domiciles open for period of time. That's how to get a bad 10-year deal from Envoy pilots and it's a form of "bait and switch". They know a percentage of Envoy pilots in those bases will take the bait even knowing the switch is coming. Long-term win for Parker and Glass and short-term win for SOME of the pilots.

You guys are being manipulated by pros.

 

The CRJ's were going anyway and the MIA and NYC bases were closing eventually. They just moved up their announcement to get a bum's rush new offer through using bait and switch. I don't expect you to understand the nuances of professionals playing you like a tenor sax with your feeble experience in this business coupled with your already defeatist attitude that I'm sure you've had since birth. Clearly, you and some of the pilots like you could be knocked over with a feather.

 

Likely wont' matter. If the MEC passes any offer to the pilots that dangles special candy to SOME of them (temporary domicile existence), they will likely claw to at least 50%+1 and it's all over.

 

But not all regional pilots are legacy material, right ?

Many have skeletons and are fat and diabetic. What happens to these poor bastards when the flow doesn't work out as planned due to inevitable bumps in the road ?

They're stuck at the regional level, many now committed due to age and other circumstances. Just why do you think they want a B-scale and ultimately 12/4 for all pilots ?

Answer : Because they know it's highly likely many of them will spend more than 12 years there due to circumstances beyond their control. SOMEONE has to fly these planes for decades because it is totally unrealistic to think that they'll be able to develop and maintain a "revolving door" operation at any given regional in perpetuity. SOME regionals WERE once a good career, Legacy Eagle being one of them.....and that was flying smaller aircraft that are now being replaced by larger. Now, it's 76 passenger airliners flown country-wide (and even International) for peanuts. Truth is, that's a plan that will fail. Delta knows it and has (and is) angling back toward mainline ops for previously out-sourced flying. United in now getting on-board with the same idea. That leaves AA, clinging to a dying antiquated model destined to failure.

Will demanding RJ's be flown even CHEAPER bring prospective pilots to the regionals in droves. Nope. Will offering "cradle to grave" career paths do that ? Ultimately no,.........not when a pilot sees they'd have to spend potentially upwards of a decade or more at the regional level and discovers years later they were lured in as suckers. Another plan will be required.

 

You are correct, however the only thing that will move those aircraft from regional to mainline is economics. As pilots we have no large scale affect on this industry. The main thing I disagree with is saying that the pool of pilots will dry up. These executives are smart, successful people. They have contingency plans and I'm sure they'll find a work force somehow. In fact you can already see these college to airline scholarship deals at Envoy.

 

Rumor over on EL is a forthcoming announcement concerning our emb145's. The company will transfer the emb145's to PDT. No numbers are mentioned. It's a rumor, but just in time to coincide with a TA vote.

 

Absolutely. Look, Parker and Glass cannot afford another no vote. Should that occur, they would be FORCED to place new aircraft at Envoy under the current CBA. They are running out of time and there aren't that many cards in the deck. So, selectively ratcheting up the heat is required and you can expect just that. It wouldn't surprise me to see the C-word leaked again, but more gently and in a roundabout way to instill horrifying fear. The stakes for them are that high and they cannot fail this time because if they do, they're next move will all but demonstrate they were playing poker all along.

How many times have they come back already ?

 

^^^^THIS!!!^^^^